Whenever
someone takes up a defense of slavery in the South, he is usually given a short
hearing due to the many lies and misconceptions about Southern slavery that
have been sown abroad by abolitionists and their fellow travelers. That is unfortunate, for the purpose of such
a defense is rather to support the deeper, more fundamental principles at the
heart of the debate over slavery and abolition, which still bear heavily on the
present. The Rev Robert Lewis Dabney of
Virginia (1820-98) provides a good overview of them in his book A Defense of Virginia and the South (New
York, E. J. Hale & Son, 1867; quotes are taken from the copy available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47422/47422-h/47422-h.htm).
Doubtless
the concepts of authority and freedom are chief amongst them. One of the key arguments of abolitionists is
that slavery violates the right of the slave to his freedom, which the
abolitionists claim is the birthright of every man that no one can take away
without his consent. Rev Dabney answers by
showing the atheistic foundation of this notion:
The radical objection to
the righteousness of slavery in most minds is, that it violates the natural
liberty and equality of man. To clear this matter, it is our purpose to test
the common theory held as to the rights of nature, and to show that this ground
of opposition to slavery rests upon a radical and disorganizing scheme of human
rights, is but Jacobinism in disguise, and involves a denial of all authority
whatsoever. The popular theory of man's natural rights, of the origin of
governments, and of the moral obligation of allegiance, is that which traces
them to a social contract. The true origin of this theory may be found
with Hobbes of Malmesbury. It owes its respectability among Englishmen, chiefly
to the pious John Locke, a sort of baptized image of that atheistic philosopher; and it was ardently held by the infidel democrats of
the first French revolution. According to this scheme, each person is by nature
an independent integer, wholly sui juris, absolutely equal to
every other man, and naturally entitled, as a "Lord of Creation," to
exercise his whole will. Man's natural liberty was accordingly defined as privilege
to do whatever he wished. True, Locke attempts to limit this monstrous
postulate by defining man's native liberty as privilege to do whatever he
wished within the limits of the law of nature. But this virtually returns to
the same; because he teaches that man is by nature absolutely independent, so
that he must be himself the supreme, original judge, what this law of nature
is. According to the doctrine of the social contract, man's natural rights are
confounded with this so-called natural liberty. Each man's natural right is to
protect his own existence, and to possess himself of whatever will render it
more happy, (Locke again adds, within the limits of natural law.) And this
scheme most essentially ignored the originality of moral distinctions. Hobbes
explains them as the conventional results of the rules which man's experience
and convenience have dictated to him. For, the experience of the mutual violences
and collisions of so many independent wills, in this supposed "state of
nature," induced men, in time, to consent to the surrender of a part of
this native independence, in order to secure the remainder of their rights. To
do this, they are supposed to have conferred together, and to have formed a
compact with each other, binding themselves to each other to submit to certain
stipulated rules, which restrained a part of their natural liberty, and to obey
certain men selected to govern. The power thus delegated to these hands was to
be used to protect the remaining rights of all. The terms of this compact form
the organic law, or constitution. Subsequent citizens entering the commonwealth
by birth or immigration, are assumed to have given an assent, express or
implied, to this compact. And if the question be asked, why men are morally
bound to obey magistrates, who naturally are their equals and fellows, the
answer of this school is: because they have voluntarily bargained to do so in
entering the social compact; and they receive a quid pro quo for their
accession to it. Such is the theory of the origin of government, from which the
natural injustice of slavery is deduced. For, obviously, if man's obligation to
civil society originates in the voluntary social contract of independent
integers, none can be rightfully held to a compulsory obedience, which enters
into all servitude, both domestic and political.
. . .
Now, it is from this
vicious theory of human rights, that abolitionism sucks its whole life. The
whole argument is but this: no restraint of government on man's will can be
righteous, which is forcible and involuntary, because the obligation of all
just government originates in the option of the individuals governed, who are
by nature sovereign. Before we indicate the relationship of this conclusion
with its disorganizing brood of kindred, we must pause to meet a question which
arises. It is this: if this pet hypothesis is relinquished, on what basis shall
we defend free government? Let us see if a better foundation for its blessings
cannot be found.
--From the section ‘The
Rights of Man and Slavery’, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47422/47422-h/47422-h.htm#Page_241
He
goes on to show from whence the principles of authority and freedom actually
flow:
. . . this impotent and infidel theory of
government sets out, (as was consistent with its atheistic inventors,) without
reference to the fact that man's existence, nature, and rights originated in
the personal will of a Creator, without reference to original moral distinctions,
or to original responsibilities to God, or to the moral quality of God's will
towards man. It quietly ignores the fact that man's will, if he is the creature
of an intelligent and moral personal Creator, never could, by any possibility,
be his proper rule of acting. It passes over, in the insane pride of human
perfectionism, the great fact that man is also a naturally depraved creature.
It falsely supposes a state of nature, in which man's will made his right:
whereas no being, save an eternal and self-existent God, has a right to exist
in that state for one instant. But all these are facts of nature,
belonging to the case, ascertainable by experience and reason. If, then, we
would have a correct theory of natural rights, all of them must be embraced in
our view. And the proper account of the matter is simply this: Inasmuch as man
did not make himself, he enters existence the subject of God. This
subjection is not only of force, but also of moral right. Moral distinctions
are original, being eternally expressed in God's perfections, and sovereignly
revealed to the creature in his preceptive will; which is, to man, the
practical source and rule of obligation. This moral obligation is therefore as native
as man is. The rudimental relations to his God and his fellows imposed on man
are binding on him ab initio; not at all by force of any assent of his
will, but merely by the rightful force of God's will: man's virtue is to
conform his will freely to God's. This will also defines his rights; by which
we mean those things which other creatures are morally obliged to allow him to
have and to do. Man, we repeat, enters existence with these moral relations
resting upon him. And among them, are his social relations to his fellows; as
is shown by the fact that he has a social nature. Now civil government is
nothing more than the organization of a part of these social relations. God's
will and providence, then, as truly as his word, has placed man naturally under
civil government. It is as natural as man is. Again: the rule of action imposed
by just government is the moral rule. That is to say, an equitable
government enjoins on its members or subjects the doing of those things which
are morally right, and the refraining from those things which are morally
wrong.
We
trace civil government, then, not to any social contract, or other human
expediency, but to the will and providence of God, and to original moral
obligation. If asked, whence the obligation to obey the civil magistrate who,
personally, is but our fellow, we answer, from God's will, which is the source
and measure of duty. Man's will is wayward and depraved. Hence practical
authority to enforce this rule of right upon him must be lodged in some hands;
and since God does not rule statedly by miracle, it must be in human hands.
Civil government is God's ordinance, and its obligations are those of original
moral right. The advantage and convenience resulting illustrate and confirm,
but do not originate, the obligation. This is the theory of government plainly
taught by St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 1 to 7) and St. Peter (1 Ep. ii. 13 to 18.) For
we are here told that the civil magistrate is God's minister, to uphold right
and repress wrong; that obedience to him in this is not only of moral, but
religious obligation; and that he who resists this function disobeys God.
What,
then, is man's natural liberty? We answer, that it is only privilege to do
whatever he has a moral right to do. Freedom to do whatever a man wills, is
not a liberty, either natural or civil, but an unnatural license, a natural
iniquity; man's will being naturally depraved. What then is man's civil
liberty? We reply, that under an equitable government, it is the same—the
privilege to do whatever he has a moral right to do. No government is perfectly
equitable: none are wholly unjust. Some withhold more, some fewer, of the
citizen's moral rights. None withhold them all. Hence, under the most despotic
government there are some rights left, and so, some liberty. A perfectly just
government would be one which would allot to each citizen freedom to do all the
things which he had a moral right to do, and nothing else. Such a government
would not restrain the natural liberty of any citizen in any respect; each
man's civil liberty would be identical with his natural. Government does not
originate rights, neither can it justly take them away. But practically, it
confirms, instead of impairing, our natural liberty; because it secures us in
the exercise of it.
--Ibid.
How
slavery fits into this picture he has painted Rev Dabney next explains:
Every
government in the world acknowledges this necessity [compulsion/restraint/control--W.G.],
and applies, in some form, this remedy. The abolition government of the United
States, for instance, imposed compulsory restraints and labour upon multitudes
of fugitive slaves, during the war. The only difference was, that whereas our
system of domestic slavery placed this power in hands most powerfully
interested to employ it humanely and wisely, the anti-slavery authorities placed
it in hands which had every selfish inducement to abuse it to the misery of the
slave, and the detriment of the publick interest. And the same government is
to-day avouching every word of the above argument, by justifying itself, from a
pretended political necessity, for placing the white race of the South under a
much stricter bondage than that formerly borne by the negroes; a bondage which
places not only labour and property, but life, at the irresponsible will of the
masters. If slavery is wrong, then the abolitionists are the greatest sinners;
for they have turned their own brethren into a nation of slaves.
Domestic
servitude, as we define and defend it, is but civil government in one of its
forms. All government is restraint; and this is but one form of restraint. As
long as man is a sinner, and his will perverted, restraint is righteous. We are
sick of that arrogant and profane cant, which asserts man's 'capacity for
self-government' as a universal proposition; which represents human nature as
so good, and democratic government as so potent, that it is a sort of
miraculous panacea, sufficient to repair all the disorders of man's
condition. All this ignores the great truths, that man is fallen; that his will
is disordered, and therefore ought not to be his rule; that God, his owner and
master, has ordained that he shall live under authority. What fruit has radical
democracy ever borne, except factious oppression, anarchy, and the stern
necessity for despotism?
--Ibid.
Slavery is,
indeed, but one form of the institution, government. Government is
controul. Some controul over all is necessary, righteous, and beneficent: the
degree of it depends on the character of those to be controuled. As that
character rises in the scale of true virtue, and self-command, the degree of
outward controul may be properly made lighter. If the lack of those properties
in any class is so great as to demand, for the good and safety of the whole,
that extensive controul which amounts to slavery, then slavery is righteous,
righteous by precisely the same reason that other government is righteous. And
this is the Scriptural account of the origin of slavery, as justly incurred by
the sin and depravity of man.
--From the section ‘Was
Christ Afraid to Condemn Slavery?’, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47422/47422-h/47422-h.htm#Page_198
He
then sums up the effects of the abolitionist view of man which he has been
describing:
The promise was made
above, to unmask some of the hideous affinities of the anti-slavery theory.
This is now easy. If men are by nature sovereign and independent, and
mechanically equal in rights, and if allegiance is founded solely on expressed
or implied consent, then not only slavery, but every involuntary restraint
imposed on a person or a class not convicted of crime, and every difference of
franchise among the members of civil society, is a glaring wrong. Such are the
premises of abolition. Obviously, then, the only just or free government is one
where all franchises are absolutely equal to all sexes and conditions, where
every office is directly elective, and where no magistrate has any power not
expressly assented to by the popular will. For if inequalities of franchise may
be justified by differences of character and condition, of course a still wider
difference of these might justify so wide an inequality of rights as that
between the master and servant. Your true abolitionist is then, of course, a
Red-Republican, a Jacobin.
--From the section
‘Abolitionism is Jacobinism’, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47422/47422-h/47422-h.htm#Page_262
Things
do not look so good for the Abolitionists at this point, and there are other
reasons which Rev Dabney gives in his book that make their position look even
worse:
--It
was not the wicked South that engaged in the shipping of slaves from Africa. That was under the control of Old England and
‘righteous’ New England, from which the latter profited enormously. Furthermore, some Southerners bought slaves
simply to save them from having to return to the brutal conditions of the
English and Yankee trading ships. See
Ch. II, ‘The African Slave Trade’ for more:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47422/47422-h/47422-h.htm#Page_27
--Virginia,
not Old England or any of the Yankee New England States, was the first nation
to pass a law ending the slave trade on 5 Oct. 1778. See Ch. 2 again.
--The
population of the African slaves in the South grew robustly, much better than
in New England, showing that they were treated very well overall by their
masters in the Southern States. See the
section ‘Effects of Slavery on Population, Disease, and Crime’, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47422/47422-h/47422-h.htm#Page_340 . This good treatment is also attested to by
the fact that there was no general uprising of the slaves against their masters
in the South during the War of Northern Aggression, though the North earnestly
sought to stir up such dissension (the Emancipation Proclamation is just such a
measure). In general, the masters loved
their slaves, and they in turn loved their masters.
But
let us repeat here what Rev Dabney has already said: The South does not say that slavery should be
regarded as an ordinary part of human social and political life. It is meant for extraordinary situations only
and should be dispensed with when that situation no longer exists. Such an one the Christian South believed
herself to be in during the 17th century: A large group of people from an alien land
holding to heathen religious beliefs and practices suddenly found themselves
living amongst her. Some arrangement was
necessary to keep good order between these two classes of men. Southern slavery was the institution that
developed to perform that function.
However,
as has been said many a time before, the era of slavery is over. The Africans are no longer aliens amongst the
Southern people. That lasted but a short
time; friendly relations began quite quickly, and the two then formed one
culture:
Our
African brothers and sisters are now an essential part of the fabric of the
Christian South. And truly, parts of
African culture early on became integral parts of Southern life: the banjo, folk tales, foodways, etc. Today, Africans and Europeans still get along
best in the South, the legacy of the pre-War era of friendship that had
developed between the two.
Yet
the South faltered somewhere, or else she would not have been decimated by the
terrible War and its aftermath. There
are many sins one could point to: shortcomings
of the servants’ masters, the secularization of life, etc. We should bewail them all and repent. What we ought not to do is to act as though
we have some special insight into God’s providence that tells us with absolute
certainty why this calamity befell us.
Such insight is a gift reserved only for God’s holiest saints. Those who lack that kind of unmistakable
holiness yet make such pronouncements are proud and arrogant, full of hubris. And yet we find that from the Abolitionist
sect, whether from yesteryear or today, a rushing stream of such prophetic
utterances comes gushing out. The most
well-known is probably Pres Lincoln’s from his Second Inaugural Address of 4
March 1865. He said then,
"Woe unto the world
because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that
man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery
is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but
which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and
that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those
by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those
divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth
piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by
another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether."
The
claim to this sort of mystical insight apart from holiness obtained by deep
repentance and years of experience in the sacramental and liturgical life of
the Orthodox Church is nothing other than the old Gnostic heresy reborn. That unfortunately is an unmistakable part of
Yankee American life.
Withal,
we hope that it is now a little clearer that the South and her institution of
slavery are the ones who are in line with Christian teaching regarding man and
authority/government rather than those who hold to the Abolitionist dogma. St John Chrysostom (+407), the Archbishop of
Constantinople, died for speaking ‘truth to power’, for criticizing the lax
morals of the Imperial Court in Constantinople, with the Empress Eudoxia becoming
an especially bitter enemy. If any in
the Church had courage enough to denounce slavery as inherently sinful, if that
were its true nature, he would have been that man. What, then, did he say when he preached about
it?
Ver. 23. "Ye
were bought with a price: become not bondservants of men." This saying is
addressed not to slaves only but also to free men. For it is possible for one
who is a slave not to be a slave; and for one who is a freeman to be a slave. "And
how can one be a slave and not a slave?" When he doeth all for God: when
he feigns nothing, and doeth nothing out of eye-service towards men: that is
how one that l is a slave to men can be free. Or again, how doth one that is
free become a slave? When he serves men in any evil service, either for
gluttony or desire of wealth or for office' sake. For such an one, though he be
free, is more of a slave than any man.
And consider both
these points. Joseph was a slave but not a slave to men: wherefore even in
slavery he was freer than all that are free. For instance, he yielded not to
his mistress; yielded not to the purposes which she who possessed him desired.
Again she was free; yet none ever so like a slave, courting and beseeching her
own servant. But she prevailed not on him, who was free, to do what he would
not. This then was not slavery; but it was liberty of the most exalted kind.
For what impediment to virtue had he from his slavery? Let men hear, both
slaves and free. Which was the slave? He that was entreated or she that did
entreat? She that besought or he that despised her supplication?
In fact, there are
limits set to slaves by God Himself; and up to what point one ought to keep
them, has also been determined, and to transgress them is wrong. namely, when
your master commands nothing which is unpleasing to God, it is right to follow
and to obey; but no farther. For thus the slave becomes free. But if you go
further, even though you are free you are become a slave. At least he intimates
this, saying, "Be not ye the servants of men."
But if this be not
the meaning, if he bade them forsake their masters and strive contentiously to
become free, in what sense did he exhort them, saying, "Let each one
remain in the calling in which he is called?" And in another place, (1
Timothy chapter 6, verse 1 and 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 2) "As many
servants as are under the yoke, let them count their own masters worthy of all
honor; and those that have believing masters, let them not despise them,
because they are brethren who partake of the benefit." And writing to the
Ephesians also and to the Colossians, he ordains and exacts the same rules. Whence it is plain that it is not this
slavery which he annuls, but that which caused as it is by vice befalls free
men also: and this is the worst kind of slavery, though he be a free man who is
in bondage to it. For what profit had Joseph's brethren of their freedom?
Were they not more servile than all slaves; both speaking lies to their father,
and to the merchants using false pretences, as well as to their brother? But
not such was the free man: rather every where and in all things he was true.
And nothing had power to enslave him, neither chain nor bondage nor the love of
his mistress nor his being in a strange land. But he abode free every where.
For this is liberty in the truest sense when even in bondage it shines through.
--Homily XIX on I
Corinthians, section 5, commentary on I Cor. 7, bolding added, http://www.ecmarsh.com/fathers/npnf1/NPNF1-12/npnf1-12-24.htm#P888_526242.
We
will happily make a stand next to men like St John and Rev Dabney rather than
the atheistic doctrines of the Abolitionists.
The choice between the two still has great relevance:
If we want to understand
the culture wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we must come to
grips with the culture wars of the nineteenth century. In order to do this, it is necessary to get
clear on the nature of American slavery, which was not what its abolitionist opponents claimed for it.
--Douglas Wilson, Black & Tan: Essays and Excursions on
Slavery, Culture War, and Scripture in America, Moscow, Idaho, Canon Press,
2005, p. 4.
Said
another way, the Abolitionists were the social justice warriors of the mid-19th
century, violent and un-Christian, though they paraded about in Christian
garb. Antifa has simply shed the phony
Christian mask of its Abolitionist forebears.
Thus, both the modern Abolitionists (the true believers in Yankee
Americanism) and the SJWs are sprung from the same root. But now, ironically, these brothers are
heading for their own fratricidal war.
And yet Southern history and tradition, like a voice in the wilderness,
calls all of them back from the abyss, to a better understanding of man and
society. Will they give heed to the
voice of that people this time, or simply beat them senseless as a previous
generation did to silence the words that sting their consciences?
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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